


we heard them say it

by Elizabeth (anghraine)



Category: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen, The Borgias (2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Jane Austen Fusion, Alternate Universe - Regency, Brother/Sister Incest, F/M, Sibling Incest, Sister-Sister Relationship, functional and dysfunctional siblings: all for the price of one!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 16:58:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12017103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anghraine/pseuds/Elizabeth
Summary: A Borgias Regency AU, where the Borgias are part of the extended de Bourgh family and thus skulking around the background of P&P.





	we heard them say it

**I.**

People whispered about the Archbishop of Canterbury even when he was plain Roderick de Bourgh. A plain Mr Smith might live as he chose; a de Bourgh, half-brother to Sir Lewis, made a very different sort of  _mister_. He must marry, and if he kept a mistress, she must be tucked away somewhere, and while of course he must maintain any children of the connection (a de Bourgh was never undutiful), he certainly should not keep them in his house!

Or so decreed his sister-in-law.  _She_  did not whisper; she proclaimed.

Roderick only laughed. “Catherine, I fear you have confused the de Bourghs with the Fitzwilliams,” he said in his pleasant way, but could not resist adding, “yet again!”

Lady Catherine drew herself upright, deeply affronted. “Sir Lewis, I assure you, never—”

“My brother would never have insulted you in such a way, true,” said Roderick. “Indeed, I do not believe he would have so much as contradicted you! I am a very different sort of man from Lewis, however; and I have no wife to offend.”

“You offend all your relations,” she said, but looked somewhat mollified. “I suppose you wish to see Anne?”

Mr de Bourgh’s face brightened. Whatever the other faults of his nature, he was a kindhearted man, and fond of children, especially those related to him. Others might see a sickly, spoiled child in Anne de Bourgh; he saw only a beloved niece.

“Indeed, I do.”

Lady Catherine permitted herself a small smile, which he understood perfectly. Though she might deplore his mother’s Spanish blood, she had no objections to Spanish money, particularly money that might find its way to her daughter.

“Of course,” she often told her sister, “it would be just like him to leave it to one of those natural children of his. I am sure he has a dozen. He may have a change of heart, however. I daresay he will do  _something_ for Anne.”

“Mm,” said Lady Anne. Their marriages had, thankfully, removed such concerns to a pleasant possibility; once Fitzwilliam married Anne, even an inveterate gamester like their father would cease to be much of a danger to the family fortunes. “Is he fond of her? I thought so.”

“In his way,” Lady Catherine said, and scowled. “Why, the last time he came to Rosings, do you know what he said?”

Lady Anne considered her reflection, gathering up her hair, then dropping it with a sigh. “Mr de Bourgh? No, not at all. It could be anything.”

“He told me that Anne reminded him of his Jack. His natural son! I was so shocked that I could scarcely breathe, sister. The presumption! But he has never had any sense of the proprieties—of what is due to us—to the family—" 

"I should think you would be pleased,” said Lady Anne absently. 

_“Pleased?”_

“Oh!” Lady Anne winced. “Wilcox, please, comb out the tangles first.”

Lady Catherine made a disgusted sound and dismissed the maid. Taking up a silver-backed brush, she began brushing her sister’s heavy dark hair herself, gentler than anyone who knew her would have expected.

“I really must do everything,” she said. “What do you mean, Anne?”

Lady Anne’s eyes opened wide. “Why, that Jack is his favourite. Our little Anne is nothing like that boy, of course, but if  _he_ should think so, well … I am sure he meant it as a compliment! Besides,” she added, in one of her quick leaps of thought, “he has always sent very nice gifts to Fitzwilliam. Not the usual, the sorts of things he cares for—books on snakes and the like. And we have no claim, no connection at all, you know, except through you. Fitzwilliam has not a drop of de Bourgh blood in him.”

“You are my family,” said Lady Catherine, grudgingly gratified. “Of course you have a claim." 

"Perhaps he will divide his fortune between Jack and Anne.”

Lady Catherine just shook her head. “Jack! I quite despise the name. So common and undignified.”

“I suppose so.” Lady Anne blinked at her in the mirror. “Is not Edward’s youngest called that?”

_“The Honourable John Fitzwilliam,"_ said Lady Catherine in freezing accents. "John is very well—a proud and ancient name—but Jack! A Jack is nothing. Well, I suppose it suits the illegitimate younger son of a Spanish halfbreed well enough.”

“I am almost certain I heard Edward call him Jack,” Lady Anne persisted.

“You did not.”

“Well, Fitzwilliam does.” With another glance at Lady Catherine’s scowling reflection, she hurried on, “Boys, though—cousins—a different matter altogether. It may be my husband’s influence, of course. He takes no pains over his dignity, not at all. Why”—she gained an unusual degree of animation—“have I told you about that boy of the steward’s?”

From there the conversation shifted to the many failings, in both ladies’ estimations, of eight-year-old George Wickham. They did not forget their brother-in-law, however, and rarely met without discussing Roderick’s latest scandal, and generous gifts. Nine years later, as he inexplicably rose through the Church, nobody could have been more pleased at his final elevation. Lady Anne, too ill to travel, sent a polite letter of congratulations, as did their niece—who unfortunately shared her frail constitution as well as her name. Lady Catherine made the journey to gloat over him in person, even it meant acknowledging the existence of his bastards.

The oldest boy, seventeen-year-old Julian, was as quiet and withdrawn as she thought a natural child forced into the public eye should be. She might almost have been forced to approve of him, if not for the handsome older woman at his side, who Lady Catherine realized with a horror she expressed to all her correspondents, might well be his mother. Jack dressed like a fop and smirked like a fool, and the girl, as fair as Lewis and Anne (a comparison that appalled her as soon as it entered her mind), constantly whispered into her eldest brother’s ear. The youngest, Geoffrey, just sat like a lump and clapped a little too late.

It would have shocked her had she known that none of them thought any better of her. In fact, after Julian ushered his brothers and sister off to his mother’s house, all four of them amused themselves for a good half-hour at their noble aunt’s expense.

“If  _I_  were heir to Rosings,” said Jack, “I would have her thrown out—right into those hedges she is always prosing on about—”

“Well, you aren’t,” Julian replied.

Janet Canton had not managed fractious children for seventeen years and fractious lovers for longer without learning to forestall a fight.

“That is enough out of all of you,” she said severely. “Lady Catherine is your aunt and a respectable woman.”

“Lady Catherine is an arrogant bore,” said Julian.

Lucretia hastened to support her favourite brother. “I think she hates all of us. She  _looks_ like she does.”

“She looks like she hates everything,” piped up Geoffrey.

Janet levelled a stern look at Julian. A little ashamed, he said,

“Well, that’s enough about her. And I think you have eaten enough, Geoffrey. You should be getting to bed.”

“But Julian—!”

“Not another word,” he said. With all the authority of an eldest son long accustomed to acting, in his father’s absence, as master of the house, he sent for the governess. 

“Must I go to bed too, brother?” said Lucretia, laughing. “Shall I sleep in the nursery?”

He flicked her cheek.

“Julian!”

Janet just covered her eyes.

 

**II.**

Sir Alan proved everything that John Powers, with all his wealth, had not been. He attended on Lucretia through the entire Season, demanded nothing, blushed when she smiled at him, and stammered through his proposal. Though the Archbishop left her little choice in the matter, Lucretia gladly accepted. 

A week later, Julian returned from Bath, where he’d been visiting their mother. Lucretia, nervous without quite able to think why, presented Sir Alan as her betrothed. 

For a moment, her brother just stared at her, eyes wide in—shock. (It must be shock.) Then he wished them both joy, voice flat, and asked when the wedding was to be.

“We spoke of April, perhaps,” said Sir Alan. “Neither of us are inclined to wait.”

Julian’s eyebrows rose. Sir Alan turned bright red.

In all honesty, Lucretia had not expected her brother to respond well to the news. He’d hated Powers long before he threw his body into the Thames—before he ever saw him, really. She had too, of course. But this was different.

For her. Not for Julian.

Later that night, he knocked on her door; she had also expected this. Lucretia called for him to enter, sent away her maid, and patted the space beside her on the bed. His space, as she considered it: for years Julian would lay just there, telling her stories and playing with her fingers to distract her from thunderstorms or nightmares. They hadn’t been children for years, but it still comforted her—the weight of his sprawled body, the brush of their fingers together. Only lately had it occurred to her that he might have been comforted as well, that he had not come running at the first crack of lightning for her sake alone.

He hesitated after Miller left, but returned to his proper place quickly enough. After a few minutes of talking lightly, lacing and unlacing their hands, his brow smoothed over.

Julian turned his head, expression very solemn. “Do you love him, sis?”

Yes _,_ she wanted to say. He is a dear, kind, devoted man and I adore him as he deserves to be adored.

“I think I can love him,” Lucretia said at last.

“Ah.” Her brother settled one of his intense, shrewd looks on her. “Had you any choice in this?”

“Yes, of course.” At no conscious command, her hand tightened about his. Her heirloom ring must be digging into his skin, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She didn’t think he cared, either. “Papa assured me that he would not order my choice. I was free to accept Sir Alan’s proposals, or not.”

Julian’s eyes narrowed. “But not to accept marriage, or not.”

Her throat felt hot and painful. “No.”

Rubbing circles against her hand, he fell silent once more: not an uncomfortable silence, but the understanding without effort that so often passed between them. Lucretia had never felt that connection, that  _ease_ , with anyone else, Sir Alan or Jack (God forbid) or their parents. She and Julian had the advantage of years of constant companionship, of course; what was a few months’ courtship to that? It was hardly a fair comparison. Someday—

Someday, Sir Alan would be more to her. Yet in her heart, she did not believe that he would ever be to her what her brother was. She did not believe that  _anyone_ could. She’d once told Julian with a childish passion that she would never love anyone as she did him, never, never. Now, at twenty, it felt just as true.

“What can I do?” Julian asked. He was not even looking at her. He didn’t need to, when his voice brimmed with his usual impeccable devotion. He, too, loved nobody as he did her. Her mother had warned her that an older brother could not always be at her beck and call, Jack mocked him as  _Lucretia’s lapdog_ , but it never shook her faith in him. From a girl she’d known that he was hers, he would always be hers.

“Marry me,” said Lucretia impulsively. It would be—easier, if he were there with them, if she swore her vows to him.  _Before_  him, that was: she banished the sudden impossible image of something else. And when Julian pretended to misunderstand, she only laughed as he spun his fancies.

“We shall run away, so far from here that nobody knows our names. Cornwall, perhaps, or Newcastle.”

“Oh heavens, not Newcastle.”

Julian grinned at her. “Morpeth, then. I shall lay bricks and you, card wool, and nobody will ever guess who we once were.”

She could not imagine him as a bricklayer for a single moment, and still less herself as a poor working woman, ruining her hands. And of course it was just nonsense, a joke between brother and sister. They could never elope. They  _would_ never, would never think of it except as a moment’s ridiculousness. Strange unconnected images passed through her mind: Julian in the redcoat for which he’d always longed, Julian kissing her goodbye as he often did, her hands tight around his neck, Lucretia herself sweeping through some fine manor, Lucretia giggling as she tugged at his cravat. (She had done that before, too, amused to see his graceful fingers fumble and preferring him in his shirtsleeves, anyway.)

She sobered. “Marry me to Sir Alan.”

Julian slanted an odd look at her, eyelashes half concealing it. He pressed the side of her hand to his lips.

He’d kissed her hands more times than anyone could count, after all their years together, in courtesy and play and comfort. Still, her skin prickled pleasantly. But she’d always liked his touch.

His voice soft, he said, “You would have  _me_ marry you to  _him_.”

She nodded.

Her brother did not often refuse her anything. But he sat up, then, and shook his head. “No. I cannot. Forgive me, Lucretia.”

“You are a clergyman,” said she. “Of course you can.”

Julian dropped her hand, rather to her disappointment. “Not for much longer, I think.”

He’d often hoped that. Lucretia, straightening up herself, studied him. He didseem different, now that she had thought to look. She’d been so preoccupied with Sir Alan, and with—everything—that she hadn’t much noticed. She thought of last night’s ball; she thought of Jack’s hands around Johnny’s neck.

_I will protect you,_ Julian had assured her, and bent down to kiss Johnny’s forehead.  _And you_.

Lucretia, only a little awkward, crawled over to kneel near and just behind her brother. It gave her the height to slip her arms over his shoulders, lock her hands over his chest, curling herself around him like a snake. She dropped her chin into the slope between neck and shoulder, as she’d done since they were children. After a long moment, Julian sighed and laid his fingers over her hands.

Very quietly, she said, “Where is Jack?”

 

**III.**

Julian knew it was not proper for brothers and sisters to dance together. Certainly it was not proper for brothers and sisters to  _waltz_ together.

But that night, Lucretia glowing and perfect in the mingled lights of moon and flames, and that pathetic betrothed of hers fluttering at her side as if he had a right, and his mother’s eyes troubled and suspicious—in that single, perfect moment, he didn’t care.

 

**IV.**

Alan didn’t believe she would really turn from him. Lucretia knew that. He thought he could storm out of her bedchamber, and she would just cry herself to sleep. Perhaps, if he felt gracious, he might return, ready to accept a tearful apology, and condescend to bestow his attentions on her.

She sat very still for a moment, fingernails digging into her palm, face turned away from the connecting door.

To hell with that, she thought, sacrilege bright and clear in her mind, like Julian. Always like Julian.

Lucretia walked over to the door and slammed the lock into place. Alan would hear it—she meant him to hear it—but she neither knew nor cared what he would think. Relaxing her hands, she wrapped her dressing gown around herself and crept out, glancing around.

The hallway was dark and silent, but she knew her way by heart. Unhesitatingly, she walked out and a short distance down, opening the door and closing it behind her without a sound. Inside, a few candles still burned. He’d been careless.

As she untied the belt to her robe, Lucretia remembered the betrothal ball. She’d danced a very proper minuet with Alan, first. Then a waltz with Julian. All their governesses had insisted that it was improper for brother and sister to dance together in public, and more improper still to waltz with anyone at all. Either compounded the fault of the other, and she’d been too happy, transported with otherworldly delight, to think of diminishing scandal. She felt as if she danced on air and stars that night—as if they both did, Julian matching her with perfect, effortless grace.

Of course he had.

Nobody else even existed, in that shining moment. When he leaned his head down to hers, Lucretia only tilted hers up, unable to think of anything but how much she loved him with every part of her being, the brightest and darkest corners of her soul. Everyone had stared—Alan, her mother, perfect strangers—but she didn’t even notice until the music stopped. How could she, with their arms about each other and their bodies in unison?

She shivered, and her robe dropped to the floor. Lucretia twisted around to catch a glimpse of herself in the long, shadowed mirror, satisfied to see that her thin négligée revealed as much as it concealed.

Letting her hand skim down the bare skin of his back, she pulled his blanket down.

Julian jerked awake. “What in God’s name—?”

Flinging himself upright and away, her brother stared at her. 

“Am I so hard to love?” whispered Lucretia.

He was already shaking his head. “No, no—” At last, he seemed to really see her, his gaze skimming down from her loose hair to her barely-covered body. She saw, with satisfaction, how reassurance fell into longing: the same longing that had flashed over his face in that instant before they kissed. Yet not quite the same. The hunger in his eyes, in each beat of her heart, was different. This would be different, less impulsive desperation, more  _them_. There’d always been an ease to their love, as gentle as it was consuming. She felt that, the familiar sweet ache of it in her flesh as well as her soul.

Lucretia saw him swallow, wide-eyed and staring, like a boy. She fully returned the favour, smiling as she looked him up and down. Of course she saw nothing she had not seen before, but it was a pleasure nevertheless: broad shoulders, taut smooth chest, handsome face blurring the hard and the soft.

“Lucretia,” he said urgently, “you cannot—”

“But I must.” She reached out a hand to touch the cheek she had touched so many times before. Not in hunger—but no, there had always been hunger, hadn’t there? They had burned for each other constantly, a flame so steady and cheerful and bright that they never recognized it for what it was.

Julian’s eyes closed. His hand, as if acting of its own will, covered hers. He pressed his mouth to her fingers. She could feel his quick breath on her skin and the speeding pulse of her heart. 

Then he tugged her hand away, though their fingers remained interlaced. Voice thick, he said,

“Your husband—your reputation—”

It was sweet, in an oblivious, Julian sort of way.

“They whisper of us up and down the length of England,” said Lucretia. “Did you not know?”

“I …” He wet his lips. Heat flashed all over her skin, her grandmother’s ring cold against her breast.

Her grandmother’s ring. It was a de Bourgh heirloom, a man’s ring rather than a woman’s; Lady de Bourgh, on a whim, had left it to Lucretia to pass to her husband. She’d threaded it through the silver chain about her neck when she dressed, meaning to give it to Alan tonight. 

Shifting to kneel in front of him, Lucretia unclasped the chain and dropped the ring into her palm.

“Give me your hand, Julian.”

He obeyed. He always obeyed—almost. His colour was high too, his eyes very dark. Lucretia dropped her eyes to the hand in hers, the familiar shape and weight of it. 

“Lucretia?”

“I love you,” she said fiercely. “I will always love you, before all others, and depend upon your affection and strength. You are a truer husband to me than any other can be.” 

She slid the ring onto his finger. It fit; of course it did, as Julian shared his height and build with the grandfather who had worn it, but still, it seemed a sign. The ring would have slid right off Alan’s little hands.

Julian lifted his hand to stare at it, then at her. 

_“Lucretia.”_

When she leaned in to kiss him, he was already tilting his head down to her. His mouth parted against hers, his hand curled about her neck, caught in her hair, and she felt the cold slide of metal over her middle finger. Breaking away, she recognized his signet ring—he wore it on his smallest finger, but it fit on her largest. Lucretia’s heart jolted, unmistakably.

“Julian—”

“With my body I thee worship,” he said softly, “and with all my worldly goods, I thee endow.”

They smiled at each other, and kissed again.

**Author's Note:**

> And this one is from 2015! Originally, it was a one-shot I wrote as the fic equivalent of comfort food, but prompts from crocordile/jubah and some anons took it to something a bit more developed. I figured it merited its own fic.
> 
> Also—I actually wrote this ring scene for a prompt _before_ the one in wgdots. I liked the idea here so much that I decided to run with it.


End file.
